Congressional Misunderstandings of Trump Travel Restrictions
How short are legislators' memories? Shorter than you think
By Andrew R. Arthur on October 7, 2019
I testified recently at a hearing before two House subcommittees (one from the House Judiciary Committee, the other from the House Foreign Affairs Committee) captioned "Oversight of the Trump Administration's Muslim Ban". The title tells you all you need to know about the foregone conclusions of the organizers, but the statements of, and questions by, one particular member in question show how short their memories are, and how little they know about a subject over which they hold significant power.
By way of background, as I stated my testimony:
[A]pprehensions about exploitation of the [Visa Waiver Program] by European nationals led to passage of the "Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015", passed as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016. That act barred nationals of Iran, Iraq, Sudan, and Syria, as well as individuals who had travelled to those countries or to Libya, Somalia, or Yemen, from accessing the VWP.
In order to further plug the holes in our national-security screening system and protect against foreign threats, between January 27, 2017 and September 24, 2017, President Donald Trump issued two executive orders (EOs) and one presidential proclamation restricting and limiting the entry of certain foreign nationals to the United States. While those actions were deemed "travel bans", this is a misnomer, as each only applied to certain nationals from specified countries.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Congressional-Misunderstandings-Trump-Travel-Restrictions
